A Serial 'Fisking' of Andrew Weissmann's Version of the History of Robert Mueller's Office of Special Counsel

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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FILE – In this Sept. 4, 2013, file photo, then-incoming FBI Director James Comey talks with outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller before Comey was officially sworn in at the Justice Department in Washington. On May 17, 2017, the Justice Department said is appointing Mueller as special counsel to oversee investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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I did it — against all my strongest instincts I hit the “Buy Now” button on Amazon and bought the Kindle version of Andrew Weissmann’s book “Where Law Ends…”  In doing so I put a small amount of change in his pocket which I regret, but I’ve read so many snippets on Twitter that he has written which seem so at odds with the facts as they are beginning to be known, that I thought I might “adopt” the book for the purpose of giving it a book review-cum-rectal exam.  Not that kind — get a dictionary.

I’m hoping these will be relatively short — not my typical treatise approach that should be in volumes.  I learned today that 70% of RedState readers access the site on mobile devices.  It dawned on me that when looking at my stuff on a phone, people must often think to themselves “Will this story ever end?”  I’m going to internalize that sentiment and work in the direction of a “Reader’s Digest” approach. There’s a reason that publication was as popular as it was for as long as it was.

So, Part One is just my reaction to some of his comments in the introduction.  The guy’s lack of self-awareness and over-indulgence in the mythology of the noble purpose and motives of the SCO is almost comical — if it wasn’t so frightening.  Keep in mind as we go along that this is the same guy who was reversed 9-0 by the Supreme Court — Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreeing with Clarence Thomas — because the jury instructions Weissmann drafted and convinced the trial judge to read, said the defendant could be convicted of a crime for merely following its well-established company practice when they had no reason to believe their action was criminal.

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And that takes me to my first comment about the introduction, where he said the following:

I had prosecuted small cases that received no press attention, and high profile ones against the bosses of New York organized crime families and the leaders of Enron Corporation.

Arthur Andersen, Enron’s outside accounting company, was prosecuted by Weissmann for destroying Enron’s financial records in accordance with Arthur Andersen’s normal record retention policy prior to receiving a subpoena for the records.  Weissmann won a conviction over the company at trial for obstruction of justice.  Since SEC regulations prohibit a felon from serving as an accountant for publicly traded companies, the conviction put Arthur Andersen out of business, and 85,000 people lost their jobs.  That’s the same conviction the Supreme Court reversed 9-0 — Ginsburg and Thomas agreeing that Weissmann was an idiot.

I had read numerous books on the Watergate investigations and prosecutions, and even further back in history, on the Nuremberg trials of German war criminals after World War II.  Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, Robert Jackson and Telford Taylor, all had written illuminating accounts of these historic investigations and trials.  We had the benefit of those and many other first hand accounts to understand those event.  The special counsel’s investigation is also an important story to be told, I believe, and one we must add to the historical record.  And the historical precedents for this book point the way toward this procedural account that explains our investigative process.

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Watergate and Nuremberg — got that?

Hitler and Nixon — follow his thinking?

The inception of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was as a counterintelligence matter seeking to understand if — and how — the Russian government might be seeking to interfere in the 2016 election process.  The “Counter” in “Counterintelligence” is the important part of the term.  The goal of the investigative effort is to “Counter” it — to stop it.  To determine if it is happening, and then take steps to intervene and put a halt to it.

But that wasn’t Weissmann’s view of the SCO’s purpose.  The SCO was a “Hunter-Killer” squad.  They had a mission. Donald Trump won the election.  He could not have done so without Russian help.  As a result the outcome of the election had to be overturned. “Get Trump” was the unspoken motto, and it was the unwritten goal.

This account is meant to provide the public with the transparency and candor necessary to assess our actions….

Ok — challenge accepted.  Let’s take some time and see just how “transparent” and full of candor your account is given the fuller panoply of facts that seem to be evolving in the public record.

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The President’s dangling of pardons to those who were considering cooperating with our investigation served, by design, to thwart our uncovering the true facts.

So, there are “true facts” out there somewhere that Weissmann knows to exist and just were not uncovered because of Pres. Trump.

THIS is proof certain of Weissmann’s preconceptions about what the SCO should have been able to find, and why Weissmann was uniquely unsuited to being placed on the SCO staff by Robert Mueller because of his inability to set his partisanship aside and be a dispassionate investigator of the unknown.

Weissmann is the 21st-century reincarnation of Robert Kennedy.  A crusading bully handed power while untethered to any obligation beyond his personalized notion of “truth” — that it is whatever he thinks it needs to be to accomplish his purpose.

Failure is not evidence of his error at the outset — failure is evidence of others preventing him from being recognized as being right.

I hate this guy.  I can’t wait to read his book to find more examples for all of you that make me feel that way.

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